Chapter 155: Defensive Battle [Morning]

"These damned xenos definitely planned this. Their actions are calculated; this city is the weak point in our defense, and because of its location, we didn't deploy many troops here in the first place."

Wang Ming took a sip of Mols tea. The sugary tea leaves gave the brew a faint sweetness, and as he drank the slightly sweet tea, he quickly pondered what to do.

The troops deployed in this city were completely incapable of stopping that magnitude of Orks; there were simply too many of them.

"Bless the Emperor."

Wang Ming silently prayed to the Emperor for a blessing, though he suspected it wouldn't do much good.

He put down his insulated mug and walked out of the Governor's Mansion. He had to go to the battlefield as well, even if he couldn't arrive in time.

"Prepare for volley fire!"

Along the frontline, the Mortal Auxilia stood in neat formations, raising their lasrifles together to prepare for a volley against the Orks charging ahead. In stark contrast to the orderly Auxilia, the trenches beside them were already engulfed in the fires of war.

Those so-called noble regiments possessed little to no military discipline; the only thing they knew to do on the battlefield was pull the trigger and shoot.

These so-called noble troops couldn't even standardize their weapons. Out of the three thousand men in the entire regiment, only a little over a thousand had the standard M36 lasrifles Wang Ming had prepared for them, while the rest carried local PDF autoguns.

The power of these weapons was completely inadequate to inflict effective casualties on the Ork Boyz, failing even to pierce their armor. Furthermore, some soldiers of criminal background had already shown signs of wanting to desert, though this was thwarted by the persuasive efforts of the Commissariat and the commissar.

"Lads! We shall use our lives to fulfill the sacred mission bestowed upon us by the God-Emperor! We are the Astra Militarum, personally ordered into existence by the Primarch! We bear the blessing of the God-Emperor's divine offspring!"

In the trenches of the noble regiment, the commissar roared, trying to prevent these criminals-turned-soldiers, whose morale was on the verge of collapsing, from cowering. Across the entire noble regiment's sector, only a little over a thousand men still had the courage to fight the mountains and seas of Orks; these were the thousand PDF family members whom Wang Ming had pardoned.

In their hearts, they understood that if not for Wang Ming's pardon, they would have long since been executed for attacking the Governor's Mansion and murdering Imperial officials.

They knew their mission here better than anyone: to complete the task assigned by Lord Primarch and defend this city.

"Commissar!"

A soldier watching the commissar standing exposed in the trench quickly grabbed his trouser leg and yanked him back down into the trench. Just as he did, an Ork bullet grazed the very brim of the commissar's peaked cap.

"It's too dangerous to stand up that high like a target!"

The soldier looked at the scorch mark left by the bullet on the commissar's cap and spoke to the stunned commissar.

"I am boosting morale! Didn't you see that the morale of those lads was about to collapse?!"

The commissar stared at the soldier before him, shoving him aside as he spoke.

Before becoming a regimental commissar, he had been a devout believer of the Ecclesiarchy, and his loyalty to the Imperial Creed was beyond doubt. This was a major reason he became a regimental commissar (though the primary reason was actually the lack of supplies from the Schola Progenum). Only someone with faith as steadfast as his could keep the various unruly elements within the noble regiment in check.

"You still can't stand outside the trench to inspire morale! If you die, their morale will utterly collapse!"

Pushed aside by the commissar, the soldier grabbed his lasrifle, which had fallen to the ground, fired a few shots out of the trench, and spoke to the commissar while shooting.

"My mistake..."

The commissar looked at the demoralized criminal soldiers huddled in the trench and muttered to the soldier. It truly had been his mistake this time. He removed his peaked cap and looked at the scorch mark carved by the bullet. If the soldier hadn't pulled him back into the trench just then, his head would likely have been blown off by that single round.

"Commissar, our lasrifle power packs are running low. The colonel is currently communicating with the neighboring regiment, hoping they can provide some weapons and ammunition support."

Just as the commissar was examining his peaked cap, a vox-caster operator hurried up to him and reported.

While the noble regiment was nominally commanded by Colonel James Gordon, who was a noble, it was effectively run entirely by Regimental Commissar Karbaro. The colonel was little more than a vox-link tool to communicate with other regiments.

"Lasrifle power packs are running low? Strip those damned cowards of their guns and switch us to autoguns! We still have plenty of autogun ammunition!"

Hearing the vox-operator's report, the commissar stood up from the ground. He looked at the criminal-turned-soldiers cowering in the trench and issued his command to the operators.

"Sir!"

Upon receiving the order, the vox-operator sprinted toward the Enforcers. Stripping weapons required the Enforcers' assistance to prevent this group from causing trouble.

With the intervention of the Enforcers, those men were quickly disarmed of their autoguns, which were promptly handed over to the soldiers whose lasrifles had run out of power.

"Tell them to concentrate their fire! Scattered shooting cannot inflict effective damage!"

The commissar stood beside the soldiers currently engaged with the Orks, shouting to emphasize his point.

Just as the commissar was directing the battle, a piercing shriek suddenly echoed through the sky. The commissar was all too familiar with that sound—it was Greenskin artillery fire.

"Ork artillery strike! Everyone down!"

The commissar yelled urgently to the soldiers. All of them immediately threw themselves to the ground, flattening themselves against the earth.

"Boom, boom, boom!!!"

The shells struck home, and the smoke and dust from the explosions blanketed the soldiers.

"Waaagh!!!"

Before everyone could recover from the recent blast, over a thousand Orks suddenly burst through the explosion smoke and swarmed the trenches. They fired frantically into the trenches, deadly rounds slamming into the soldiers. The standard Astra Militarum flak armor was pierced by the gunfire, and soldier after soldier was instantly riddled with holes.

"Bang!"

The commissar was the first to react. Spotting an Ork firing into the trench, he raised his bolt pistol and blew the creature's head off with a single shot.

This bolt pistol had been personally given to him by Wang Ming. At the time, looking at this pious follower of the Ecclesiarchy, Wang Ming had urged him to maintain strict control over the very first Astra Militarum regiment of Castellum Four, declaring that he would use his life to fulfill the heavy trust placed in him by the Primarch.

"For the God-Emperor!!!"

Roaring, the commissar scrambled out of the trench, swiftly drew the chainsword at his waist, and hacked the head off an Ork right in front of him.

The stunned soldiers in the trench heard the commissar's roar. Snapping out of their daze, they quickly scrambled to their feet, charged out of the trenches, and launched an attack against the Orks using the bayonets affixed to their autoguns.

The soldiers and the Orks engaged in brutal hand-to-hand combat. The physical prowess of the Orks was incomparable to that of humans; the battle tilted overwhelmingly in favor of the Greenskins, and brave soldier after brave soldier fell beneath their blades.

"Boss, what do we do? Should we run away while they're fighting these monsters?"

In the trench, a criminal-turned-soldier watched the carnage raging above and asked his leader.

"Run? Where can we run to? The surroundings are full of these monsters!"

His leader gripped a bayonet tightly. Hearing his subordinate's words, he smiled bitterly and retorted. They had nowhere to go; even if they managed to slip past the Enforcers' sight in the chaos, there was no way to escape the encirclement of those Orks.

"Take the brothers up. We've acted like cowards for too long; it's time to fight for our lives. If we don't wipe out these monsters, we won't survive either!"

The leader stood up and told his subordinates. They had to fight for their lives; if they didn't eliminate the Orks, they wouldn't live much longer.

"For survival!"

The leader roared and charged up out of the trench. After a moment of hesitation, his subordinates followed closely behind him.

Not fighting for your life at this moment meant certain death, but fighting gave you a glimmer of hope for survival. Anyone could understand this logic. The surrounding criminals, seeing the men charging forward, also grabbed their bayonets and followed suit.

Anyone assigned to this unit was a hardened criminal; they feared death intensely, which meant they desperately wanted to live.

The criminals rushed onto the trench parapet and clashed with the Orks in a bloody melee. Humans driven into a desperate corner become utterly unhinged, and these criminals proved precisely that point. They locked in combat with the Orks, every single one of them descending into a frenzy amidst the slaughter.

Could a single Ork easily kill a human? Yes. What about two humans? It could easily kill them too. But what about a horde of maddened humans?

The criminals had gone mad. They surrounded the Orks tightly, using their numerical advantage to physically pin individual Greenskins to the ground. If two men weren't enough, three would join; if three weren't enough, four. A mob of humans threw their weight down on the Orks, pinning them immovably, and then hacked away at them repeatedly with bayonets until the creature ceased all struggle before letting go.

The commissar, who had been the first to charge out of the trench, had been grabbed by the neck by an Ork. A suffocating tightness gripped his body, making him feel as though he was about to answer the Emperor's call.

At that moment, a group of criminals rushed over to the Ork holding the commissar, attacking the beast frantically with bayonets. Assailed by the criminals, the Ork quickly released the commissar and turned to fight them.

Thrown to the ground, the commissar looked at the criminals, thinking in his heart that they had finally grasped the sacred mission of serving the God-Emperor.

The criminals pinned the Ork down with sheer numbers, dozens of bayonets slicing into its body over and over again until its head was severed, at which point they finally released it.

As the criminals fought fiercely against the Orks, the Enforcers' reinforcements finally arrived. A disciplined, uniform volley of laser fire quickly wiped out the Orks that had broken into the trenches.

"How many are still alive?"

The commissar looked out over the trench ground, which was littered with mutilated human remains, and shouted loudly. At first, no one answered; only groans echoed continually from the heaps of corpses.

After a long while, the soldiers still breathing on the ground slowly rose to their feet. Those unable to stand weakly raised their hands. They had all sustained severe injuries; during the melee with the Orks, some had had their limbs torn right off.

Most of those still living were missing arms or legs. They looked at the commissar, and the commissar looked back at them. Criminals and pardoned men alike, they were all true soldiers now.

With the help of the Enforcers, the survivors were all brought back down into the trench. The Mortal Auxilia next to them also provided some field medical servitors, which immediately began emergency triage on the living.

The medical servitors crawled over the wounds of the maimed soldiers, their lasers cauterizing the flesh to stanch the spurting blood, while painkillers injected into the soldiers' bodies greatly dulled their agony.

For soldiers with internal organ damage, the servitors performed emergency surgery on the spot: anesthetics were administered, and lasers cut open abdomens to begin operations.

Because of this sudden Ork ambush, over a thousand men in the regiment had perished, their pulverized remains carpeting the floor of the trenches.

In the wake of the noble regiment's heavy losses, this defensive sector was now placed under the command of the Enforcers. A force of four hundred Enforcers would hold the line together with the remaining men.

"Please inform the commander-in-chief of our losses. We hope to urgently recruit some conscripts from the city."

The commissar looked at the colonel, speaking to the pathetic noble who had hidden in the command post the entire time. The commissar's tone was heavy with suppressed fury.

He was enraged that this colonel, who should have been leading the charge, had cowered under a command table in the command post, weeping and screaming like a woman when the battle began.

"Mr. Commissar, I will. I certainly will. I'll go communicate right now."

James Gordon stared at the blood-soaked commissar, his voice trembling. He had never been to the front lines and had never witnessed combat; the recent battle had nearly scared him to death. Yet, he hadn't fled like his younger brother, because his brother had been shot straight through the upper torso by this very commissar during an earlier retreat.

"You'd better be quick about it."

The commissar cast a cold glare at the coward preparing to leave, wishing he could march over and kick him to vent his hatred.

Sensing the commissar's ill intent, James Gordon scurried hastily toward the command post. Perhaps out of sheer terror, he tripped and fell along the way, picking himself up covered in dirt before tumbling inside.

"We still need to hold out for a day. Emperor preserve us, and it's only just been one morning."

The commissar glanced at the wailing soldiers in the trench, then looked toward the Ork artillery fire raging ahead of the line, thinking with helpless resignation.

The battle had only just begun, yet such heavy losses had been suffered in a single morning. A full day of defensive warfare was truly going to be difficult to fight.

After James Gordon relayed the commissar's request, the commander-in-chief promptly dispatched five Mortal Auxilia soldiers into the city to initiate the recruitment of conscripts.